Review of news, views and action - May 2013

Mike Childs

07 June 2013

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry. That fantastic spoof on Nick Clegg's tuition fees apology needs revisiting. Clegg needs to apologise big time for the failure of the Liberal Democrats to back a legal requirement for electricity to be low carbon by 2030. Without low carbon electricity by this date in the UK and elsewhere we can kiss good-bye to an adequate response to climate change and instead welcome climate chaos across the globe.

Over the last couple of decades my respect for the hard graft of MPs has grown. Those eight Conservatives and 16 Liberal Democrats who defied the Whips to support the amendment yesterday deserve a pat on the back, as do the other 243 MPs who did the right thing. But those backbench Liberal Democrats that voted against or abstained need to reflect on what was a shameful day for the Party on possibly the biggest issue facing the globe in the 21^st century.

This vote could have been carried through if all the Liberal Democrat backbench MPs had backed the amendment.

Now it's over to the unelected House of Lords to see if they will do right for future generations and the environment on which we all depend.

Other news this month

My colleague Michael Warhurst has been busy in Brussels pushing for better company reporting. You can read his blog here. Meanwhile the European Commission has published its report into footprint indicators, following Friends of the Earth Europe's campaign to get the EU to properly measure its global environmental impact.

Working with other groups we held an excellent Transforming Finance Conference which was attended by over 250 activists, academics and people from business and think tanks. The videos are on the Guardian website here. The presentations are on: what would a democratic financial system look like; avoiding a new crisis; banking for the real economy; and how do we fund the green economy?

With Friends of the Earth International we launched a shocking new case study on UK banks investing in land grabs in Uganda.

We had a fantastic Bee Tea in Parliament attended by 115 MPs, all keen to get their photo taken and many backing our campaign for a Bee Action Plan. We now have 200 MPs supporting our call. We also published with University of Reading a report highlighting the threat to some iconic bee species.

The campaign against fracking is building across the country. Our regional campaigner Helen Rimmer attended Camp Frack in Lancashire as activities gear-up to stop the ridiculous search for more and more fossil fuels.

And the National Union of Students are working with us on the Get Gobby Campaign, which aims to encourage sustainable diets.

Time to Clegg to rethink

Perhaps Mr Clegg - along with George Osborne - thinks that all this environment stuff is just a luxury when the job at hand is to fix the economy. Of course that's bonkers, as Dave Powell's blog shows. Sorry to state the obvious Mr Clegg.

To check out other news click here.